Hello readers old and new and welcome to the regular monthly updates for the goings on at the Tree Life Centre here just outside of Bristol in Kingswood. As with most of the country we have had to ‘contend’ with the lovely weather, but as you can imagine when we are trying to grow things keeping everything adequately watered certainly became a challenge! As there is only so many times I can talk about watering, along with weeding and grass cutting, this month’s blog may be a little shorter than usual, as everyone has been chipping in trying to keep on top of it and has been the main tasks throughout the month.
The area where the brown shed once stood
The major events from the month was we had the pleasure of hosting the Royal Bank of Scotland for three days completing tasks. These included demolishing our brown shed, which due to being vandalised so much had made it just usable to store our rubbish, erect a new polytunnel in it’s place and arranging the wildflower growing area next to it, including reorganising the greenhouse removing the doorway ends so now you can walkthrough it and generally tidying up the plants and pots. This was completed over two days, with the volunteers finishing off the polytunnel with fixing the cover on afterwards. The third day was spent digging out a new pond in the tree trail and laying the liner. A fourth day is planned for July where they will (hopefully) finish off the pond area! A huge thank you so far to the guys who got stuck in, we hope you enjoyed the days!
The new pond
With the reorganising of the wildflower area we have now kicked on with our wildflower growing project with many bee and butterfly mixes ready to buy with plenty more seeds germinating and growing. On top of this we have also reorganised the shop area with a long term view to make it more straightforward and informative for visitors with information on all the different wildflowers and trees we have, although this is still work in progress so bare with us if you do visit us! All of our various groups have been involved in the process, from sowing the seeds to talking to the visitors about what we have grown.
The completed polytunnel
Finally, a group of volunteers, and Jason, went on a one day course to the Cotswold Conservation Board’s centre in Northleach to complete a Lantra Brushcutter/stimmer course to become certified operators. This means we can now take on conservation work where petrol brushcutters/strimmers are needed, however we still enjoy scything tasks too so if you have either task and wish for us to do it then please contact Jason who will be more than happy to chat about your needs and requirements.
We are always on the look out for more volunteers, so if you are interested in learning conservation and horticulture tasks then pop by and see what we get up to. General volunteering is on Thursday and Friday but we have a limited amount of ‘grower’ roles throughout the week if you can’t make it in on the volunteering days. Also, we are pleased to announce that the Tuesday group’s participants have a chance to gain a John Muir award whilst taking part. For more information about all roles and groups then please contact Jason.
Don’t forget you can like and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more up to date news and pictures, including info about new groups and events.
Parish notices:-
Throughout the school summer holidays on a Wednesday we will be running Wild Wednesdays for kids aged 3-5, for more info click here. We may expand this for older kids too depending on demand so please do contact us if you are interested in the group.